Mic drops of 1934

Clearly not the same flavor of dropping the mic we see today, but still worth a note. It's January 1934, and a popular radio personality is in Washington:

Father Charles E. Coughlin, Detroit radio priest, forsook the microphone today to deliver a typical Sunday afternoon sermon in the vaulted caucus room of the house office building.

His text was money; his audience, the members of the house committee on coinage and some three hundred of his radio fans, who filled every available seat and stood lined two deep along the walls to hear him.

This was back in Coughlin's pro-FDR days, so:

... "God Almighty is guiding Mr. Roosevelt: there's no question about that! And we're headed for a proisperity such as we've never even dreamed of."

I admit to a touch of longing for the days when we spelled "mike" the good old way, though given the Trib's spelling rules* of the time, I'm almost surprised that Col. McCormick didn't give "mic" a try.

* Capitalization is as in the original.

No, but thanks for askin'

A simple rule is hereby proposed for stylebooks everywhere:

When in doubt, use the grownup spelling.

I'm certainly not suggesting there's no g-droppin' in hockey. (Just heard a nice fat one midway through the second period here). If you wanted to bet that it's unusually frequent among hockey announcers, though, I might suggest that's not only a dumb bet but a pretty boring one. If that's the most interesting thing you hear, you need a lot more Don Cherry in your life.

This isn't even a pickin'-and-grinnin' g-drop -- the sort presentation editors use as a way of showing they respect your people's quaint habits and didn't really just ride in on a turnip truck from New Jersey. Rather than a dumb excuse, it has no excuse at all. (OK, maybe one -- another capital letter actually won't fit in the reefer. So shave the picture or shrink the hed a couple points.)

 As for the stupid question, let's not be too quick to assume a winged victory would be an "upset." Datsyuk just made it 1-0.

Spelling coup of the year

Please tell me you meant this one, AP.

The AP is catching up with a five-day-old story about the pieing of the archbishop of Belgium, Andre Leonard, who has apparently "shocked Catholics by sympathizing with priests accused of pedophilia and by saying that homosexuals deserved to get AIDS." And how is his support at home?

On Tuesday, Leonard's spokesman quit his job, saying he could no longer speak for a "loose canon."

Somewhere, Isaac Asimov is pounding on the table.